At Sing Sing an old chum of mine named Tom escaped, and would never have been caught if he had not been so sentimental. Indeed, he was improvident in every way. He had been a well-known house-worker, and made lots of money at this graft, but he lived well and blew what he stole, and consequently did many years in prison. He was nailed for a house that was touched of "éclat" worth thousands, and convicted, though of this particular crime he was, I am convinced, innocent; of course, he howled like a stuck pig about the injustice of it, all his life. While he was in Raymond Street jail he got wind of the men who really did the job. They were pals and he asked them to try to turn him out. His girl, Tessie, heard of it and wanted to go to Police Headquarters and squeal on the others, to save her sweetheart. But Tom was frantic, for there was no squeal in him. You find grafters like that sometimes, and Tom was always sentimental. He certainly preferred to go to stir rather than have the name of being a belcher. So he went to Sing Sing for seven and a half years. He was a good mechanic and was assigned to a brick-laying job on the wall. He had an easy time in stir, for he had a screw right, and got many luxuries through the Underground; and was not watched very closely. One day he put a suit of clothes under his stripes, vamoosed into a wood near by, and removed his stripes. He kept on walking till he reached Connecticut, which, as I have said, is the softest state in the Union. Tom would never have finished that bit in stir, if, as I have also said, he had not been so sentimental. When in prison a grafter continually thinks about his old pals and hang-outs, and the last scenes familiar to him before he went to stir. Tom was a well-known gun, with his picture in the Hall of Fame, and yet, after beating prison, and leaving years behind, and knowing that if caught he would have to do additional time, would have the authorities sore against him and be confined in the dark cell, he yet, in spite of all that, after a short time, made for his old haunts on the Bowery, where he was nailed by a fly-cop and sent back to Sing Sing. So much for the force of habit and of environment, especially when a grafter is a good fellow and loves his old pals.